Before actually attending Grace Hopper, I decided to do some research to see what other women who had previously attended thought about making the most out of the experienced. I ended up finding a few blogs that I got three take aways from.
1st: PLAN AHEAD
Grace Hopper has so many amazing events that it is overwhelming to even think about. There are many workshops and discussions going on simultaneously so you really have to pick and choose the ones that interest you most. I found that the GHC15 app really helped with this. Each night before the conference I could go through the list of events and add the ones I wanted to go to on my agenda. Then the next day I was able to pull up my agenda and make it to the events I wanted to go to. Today I attended the Square event in the morning, and was able to see Sheryl Sandberg speak in the early evening. My afternoon was filled with discussions from huge career changes to watching a panel that included CEO of Twitter and Square, Jack Dorsey. All in all it was an awesome day!
2nd: HAVE RESUMES AT THE READY
Yesterday we attended a Facebook lunch event. At this event I met a really nice woman who had done some research for Sheryl Sandberg before being hired onto Facebook to work on the women diversity programs. I really enjoyed talking to her. Toward the end of our conversation she asked if I had a copy of my resume. I felt my face turn red and realized I had left them at our hotel. Luckily she was super nice and gave me a business card so I could email her my resume. She also hooked me up with one of their recruiters to fill out a brief application form. I then vowed to never be without my resumes for the rest of the event.
3rd: NETWORK NETWORK NETWORK
This whole celebration is all about building a community of women in IT. From the career fair to the evening company events there are amazing women everywhere. Tonight Sophie and I attended the Women TechMakers mixer. Google’s Women Techmakers program provides visibility, community, and resources for women in technology. This event was super awesome. While we were in line to get into the event, we met a nice woman from France. She had applied at a whim to attend GHC and ended up getting a Google Scholarship to attend. (ALL THE WAY FROM FRANCE!) This was not uncommon, there were so many IT women from other countries that were there. It gave us a chance to connect with other females in our similar roles in another country and see that most of our struggles with the huge gender gap in IT is very similar, however, some countries are much more passionate about IT that the USA. Multiple speakers mentioned that the UK is now going to require all students to take CS courses, which is really cool considering my first experience with CS wasn’t really until my junior year in college. Many companies are also hosting events to get young girls excited to code which is also just super cool.
All in all, it was a great day today. I cannot wait to see what tomorrow has in store for us all!!!
This is a picture of me writing to represent UMSL at the event and the second picture is of me and Sophie in front of the digital graffiti wall at the TechMaker’s mixer tonight!
